


Never Let You Down

by doivent



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Baseball, Alternate Universe - High School, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-11 19:25:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7904695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doivent/pseuds/doivent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>blossom, verb /ˈblɒs(ə)m/</i><br/>1 (Of a tree or bush) produce flowers or masses of flowers: a garden in which roses blossom.<br/>1.1 Mature or develop in a promising or healthy way.</p><p>Sanghyuk is the first-year starting pitcher for Seoul Excelsis High School, the first one since his idol, third-year ace Jung Taekwoon. He has a lot to live up to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Let You Down

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you thank you thank you to sports unni for all your guidance and encouragement and bounty of useful resources and links. This isn't everything I wanted to do but I hope it's enough for now. And thank you to 妹妹 (shining diamond~) for early help with the plot, without which there wouldn't be a story at all.
> 
> To my team, congratulations on your hard work! I offer my modest contribution.

It was the bottom of the third inning, with the bases loaded. Unfortunately, the bases were loaded by the other team. Seoul Excelsis High School was already down by two; another run or two here would push their loss from temporary toward decisive, and bring the team's mood down with it. As their pitcher, the pressure rested entirely on Sanghyuk.

Behind home plate, Sungjae signaled to Sanghyuk for a curveball, settled back into his catcher's crouch, then pounded his fist into his glove twice. _Don't worry, you've got this._ He'd given this sign with every new batter for the last two innings, but he meant it just as much each time. Sanghyuk himself wasn't so sure.

Today's game was his first start of the high school baseball season, and expectations were high, especially his own. Sanghyuk had shown a lot of promise in the Daejeon Little League, and he was Seoul Excelsis High School's first freshman starting pitcher in years. He'd done well in the first couple of team practice games, getting through his innings and making even the second- and third-years strike out swinging.

But team practice and Little League were different from a real high school game. Some of these opposing third-years were fully grown, and their bats slammed the ball back as hard as it came, tripping up the infielders or taking it all the way to the flimsy chain-link fence around the outfield. Their aim was nothing less than the KBO, or even America. And naturally, a higher calibre of batter required a higher calibre of pitcher to take them out.

Sanghyuk blew out air noisily through his lips, then did as he was told: two fingers along the seam, wind up, throw. It zagged wide of the plate, and Sungjae reached out and snagged it with his glove. Ball one.

"Come on, Hyukkie!" Jaehwan yelled from first base, and Sanghyuk glanced in his direction. If he turned his head the other way, he would see Jung Taekwoon in the dugout, with his narrowed, silently judging eyes. He always seemed to be watching when you weren't looking, and when you were looking, he'd look away.

Last weekend, Taekwoon had pitched their opening game. From the dugout, Sanghyuk had watched slack-jawed as Taekwoon recorded strikeout after strikeout through seven innings, glowering at the batter with his glove held over his face between pitches. There was something about Taekwoon's turbulent manner that fascinated Sanghyuk: he was placid on the surface, which showed his control, but there was a bubbling rage lying underneath his every throw, which showed his power. It was more than just technical skill.

Sungjae flashed the next sign. _Forget the curve, just get him to swing at this._ Sanghyuk nodded, winded up, and launched his pitch down toward the dirt at Sungjae's feet. The batter didn't take the bait; ball two. _Try it again,_ Sungjae signed. Behind him, Sanghyuk could hear the runner at second advancing forward a few steps from the base. At least he didn't have to worry about stolen bases, he thought grimly, and he pitched.

The batter clipped the ball and sent it bouncing toward centre field. Sanghyuk spun around, but all he could do was watch as Ilhoon snared the grounder and hurled it to Wonsik at second base. Wonsik tagged the incoming runner for the third out, and the inning was over.

Sanghyuk walked back to the dugout, keeping his head down as his teammates jogged past him. One of them slowed down to match his pace, and he already knew it was Cha Hakyeon, the third-year shortstop and team captain.

"Hey, it's okay," Hakyeon said. "We're batting now, we can take it back." Hakyeon seemed to be enchanted by the fact that Sanghyuk was the team's maknae, and he always had a calm, maternal tone when he spoke to him. Sometimes it irritated Sanghyuk—he got enough of that from his mother and his sister—but right now it made his tear ducts sting a little.

None of his other teammates were as nice as Hakyeon. "Nice out," said Hongbin, their backup fielder, as he opened a water bottle for Jaehwan. "I hope you don't always need the defence to save your ass."

Hakyeon patted Sanghyuk's shoulder. "Don't listen to him." He gestured with his head toward Ilhoon. "He's just mad because a first-year is eating his lunch."

Hongbin glared at Hakyeon. "Yeah, if only Taekwoon was having that problem, huh?"

Taekwoon sat at the far end of the bench, and Sanghyuk quietly slid into the narrow space beside him. At least he wouldn't have anything to say. Sanghyuk concentrated on his breathing, in and out. He could feel the oncoming edge of a full-on panic attack, and wanted to tip away from it. It was just one game, he told himself, but the next thought, _there will be more,_ was the opposite of comforting right now.

On the field, Sungjae struck out. He jogged back to the dugout as Eunkwang stepped up to take his place at home plate. That meant Sanghyuk was next to bat, and he should already be warming up on the field. He took a deep breath to prepare himself. His hitting hadn't been great today either, but he'd at least made some contact with the ball. Maybe he could redeem himself this way.

As he was about to stand up, Taekwoon put a hand on his chest, and Sanghyuk startled. He was about to say something when he saw the warning look on Taekwoon's face, and the small nod he gave to where Coach Hwang was looking down at his clipboard in front of the rest of the team.

"Hongbin, get up there," Coach Hwang said after a moment's pause. "You're pinch hitting after Eunkwang. Daewon, you're pitching the next inning, so go get warmed up." He didn't look at Sanghyuk, didn't even say who Hongbin and Daewon were replacing, but he didn't need to. Daewon gave their end of the bench a look before he and the other catcher Nakhun jogged out of the dugout.

 _There will be more,_ Sanghyuk thought with dread. Seoul Excelsis lost the game, 5-3.

\---

After class ended on the following Monday, Sungjae found Sanghyuk right away, with his friend Kim Namjoo tagging along behind him. Sungjae was in Sanghyuk's class, and he had attached himself to Sanghyuk the moment he found out they were both first-years trying out for the baseball team. He was an exceptional first-year himself, and he was already starting to overtake Nakhun as the regular catcher. "Ready for practice?" he asked, with his usual wide grin.

Sanghyuk sighed. "I could use it."

"Aww, you weren't that...horrible," Namjoo said, by way of encouragement, but her voice wasn't unkind. "Isn't baseball like that, anyway? You're _supposed_ to lose half of the games."

"Well, you're not _supposed_ to."

"It's just the beginning of the season," Sungjae said. "But you know all about that. The best pitcher in Daejeon since Ryu Hyunjin, right?"

Sanghyuk laughed nervously. "That's what I heard," Namjoo added, nodding. "Someone at the game on Saturday was talking about it too."

"Oh, great."

"Just have to get back into it," said Sungjae. "Forget about the last game, move on to the next one. That's what drills are for."

Sanghyuk nodded, but his arms still dragged at his sides at the idea of gripping a baseball. He sighed heavily. "At least the games aren't until the weekends now."

"You know what we need? A good cheering team." Sungjae clapped Namjoo on the shoulder. "Can you get your friends together? It's for a good cause."

Namjoo shrugged him off. "That depends. Are you gonna come out to cheer when volleyball season starts?"

Sungjae grinned. "That depends, are you gonna make the team?" Namjoo smacked him on the arm. "Ow, careful, I need that!"

Sanghyuk chuckled. "Yeah. Go for his face instead, he doesn't need that."

As little as it was, their pep talk helped, and Sanghyuk felt okay at practice, at least until the team's warm-up laps ended and Coach Hwang called him and Taekwoon over.

"Yes, Coach?" said Sanghyuk. He couldn't quite look at Taekwoon.

The coach didn't have any such fear. "I should've done this sooner," he began, "or rather I shouldn't have to say anything at all. But Taekwoon, I'd like you to start taking charge of Sanghyuk's development from here on."

"Is this because of the last game, sir?" said Sanghyuk. His voice quavered a little, but he had to ask.

Coach Hwang shook his head. "Not just because of the last game." He addressed Taekwoon again. "Yang Yoseob did the same for you when you first started, and now it's your turn. You'll both still practice with the rest of the team, but from now on, you keep a special eye on him. Okay?"

Taekwoon nodded. "Yes, Coach." He looked at Sanghyuk, with the same inscrutable expression he always had that Sanghyuk couldn't help but read as judgement.

They rejoined the rest of the team. If Sanghyuk had been able to relax before, the pressure was back on. Every windup felt like a test, even if he was just throwing to Sungjae's shin guards. The ball was both too slippery to grasp and a leaden weight in his hand. With every throw, he glanced over to where Taekwoon was standing, and when Taekwoon merely stared back, the cold feeling in his arms climbed a little higher.

On one hand, this was what he'd been hoping for, since Taekwoon's pitching was the reason Sanghyuk had come to Seoul Excelsis in the first place. A year earlier, he'd seen their team soundly defeat his sister's high school team, and Taekwoon was the winning pitcher. He'd been in second year, and even then he was without a doubt the team's ace. His sister had been there to see her crush play shortstop, but Sanghyuk was the one who walked away with his heart pounding. Being able to pitch under Taekwoon's guidance was a dream come true.

On the other hand, it was easy to admire his pitching from a distance, but it was nearly impossible to get closer than that. Even though Coach Hwang had said it, it was hard to imagine Taekwoon being told what to do by a senior student, hard to imagine any version of him that wasn't already fully formed. He might as well have been born throwing fastballs to the inside corners. Sanghyuk got a distinct feeling that Taekwoon wasn't interested in a player with anything less.

When it was time for the pitchers to change places on the mound, Sanghyuk waited obediently as Taekwoon walked up to him. Taekwoon didn't talk a lot, but whatever few words he might have for him, Sanghyuk was ready. Taekwoon kept his head bent down and rolled his shoulders a few times with his elbows extended, stretched his neck. Then he turned to Sanghyuk.

"What are you doing," he said, and that was it. It took a moment for Sanghyuk to realize what he meant, and then he retreated quickly from the mound, his shoulders hunched sheepishly.

That weekend he watched from the dugout as Taekwoon pitched his way through seven more innings. It wasn't a perfect game by any means, but every hit gained by the other team only seemed to make Taekwoon's next pitch that much harder and more laser-precise to Nakhun's glove. The sound of the bat swinging through empty air seemed louder than any home run hit. Hyunsik, Minhyuk and Wonsik's batting backed him up, and Seoul Excelsis won by a few runs.

After the game, Sanghyuk brought Taekwoon a canned sports drink in the changeroom. "Good job today, sunbae," he said to somewhere around Taekwoon's shoulder. Then he hesitated. Could he ask for help before his start the next day, or was that too forward? Was he irritating Taekwoon too much? Before he could make a guess on what the answer was, Taekwoon stood up and left.

The next day, Sanghyuk tried to imitate Taekwoon's determination on his own. For each successful crack of the bat, he thought about sucking it up like air into his body and focusing it into a sharper pitch. It worked, a little. This time, he made it to the fifth inning before the other team scored the tying run and Coach Hwang pulled him for Daewon.

Sanghyuk sat next to Taekwoon on the bench, and Taekwoon moved over a little when he sat down, but still, he had nothing to say.

Maybe Sanghyuk was right: you had to be born that way to pitch like that.

\---

A month of baseball went by, and slowly but surely, Sanghyuk was losing his control. Not all of his pitches were bad, and not all of his starts were losses, but if he were straight-up a bad pitcher, his failures might have been easier to take. Instead it was more like gambling: with every pitch, he was never sure if the ball would fly out of his hand properly or not, and it was more often not. The flashes of brilliance only made the bad streaks all the more frustrating, and noticeable.

Behind the plate, Sungjae perservered, his powers of catching the ball in the right place tightening with each game. But even he had long abandoned his more optimistic signals, and the way he called the pitches with Sanghyuk now was more like talking to an unintelligent dog than a friend. _Put it here. Down. No. Right here._

Sanghyuk had heard about it happening to pitchers at every level, even the powerful American ones who treated their arms like sacred instruments and counted every pitch they threw. For everyone, there could be a time when their arm would just stop obeying. It was normal. But it wasn't good. It kept him up at night, as he tried to remember what it had been like back in Little League. The problem was, he could barely remember. He had just thrown, and the wins had come to him. But that wasn't a state he could hope to go back to anymore.

Hakyeon was desperate to fix it. At first he would walk over to the pitcher's mound mid-game to give Sanghyuk and Sungjae some extra advice, but he did it so often that Coach Hwang had eventually banned him from doing it. He had to wait until between innings, and then his monologues about the other team's hitting weaknesses were so crammed full of information that Sanghyuk had a hard time following along.

But at least he and Sungjae were trying to help. The rest of the team tiptoed around the problem, in that superstitious way that only emphasized how much of a problem there was. Even Hongbin had nothing to say to him anymore.

And then there was Taekwoon. Taekwoon was there at every practice, watching Sanghyuk go through his drills and exchanging places with him when he was done; and he was there at the far end of the dugout bench during games, always making room for Sanghyuk to sit between innings when he didn't have to hit. He never had anything to say to Sanghyuk, but the more weeks went by, the more Sanghyuk felt it was because he wouldn't know where to start.

There was one day that was particularly bad. Sanghyuk had pitched three weak but salvageable innings of singles and ground ball outs, but in the fourth inning his pitch hit a batter on the leg and sent him to first base. After that, Sanghyuk's game fell apart. He didn't want to hit anyone else, but he curved the ball too much the other way, either too far away from Sungjae's glove or right to the opponent's swinging bat.

The mood in the changeroom after the game was dark. Even normally happy-go-lucky Jaehwan punched a locker on his way to the showers, and the metallic bang reverberated around the room.

Only Hakyeon broke the silence: "Sanghyuk, have you ever played in the field before?"

A few of the other players' heads turned. Right away, Sanghyuk wanted to shrink into nothing and disappear. "A while ago," he replied. "Second base."

Hakyeon hummed. "Your glove isn't too bad. Maybe we could use you as a backup infielder."

"No," Taekwoon said. The heads turned the other way, including Sanghyuk's. His quiet voice pierced the air as forcefully as Jaehwan's fist against the metal had. "He's a pitcher. He needs to pitch."

"Then help him pitch," Hakyeon replied mildly. "Like Coach told you to." When Taekwoon didn't answer, he walked away, and gradually the others left them alone, too.

Sanghyuk was about to leave himself when Taekwoon said, "Wait," and then, "Look at me, please." Sanghyuk was so startled that he did, and for the first time he was looking directly into Taekwoon's eyes.

After Taekwoon didn't say anything for a few beats, he asked, "What is it?"

Taekwoon took a breath. "Coach wanted me to tell you that you won't be starting anymore."

Sanghyuk's blood froze. "Who's starting instead?"

"Shin Donggeun." Taekwoon winced, and Sanghyuk felt bad for Donggeun for a moment. He was their weakest relief pitcher, but he showed up every day, and Coach Hwang probably felt that he had earned it. "Hakyeon's right. It's my fault."

"It's not your fault," said Sanghyuk, turning away. "I wish I could've been as good as everyone thought I was."

"But you could." Sanghyuk looked up again. Taekwoon's face was usually so sharp, but right now he looked as gentle as his voice sounded. "I wanted to watch you first, to know what to do. I haven't really done anything like this before, so I wanted to get it right. But then this happened. I'm sorry you had to get here first for me to do something."

It was the most he'd ever heard Taekwoon say at one time. "I thought... I thought you didn't want to help me," Sanghyuk blurted out. "I thought you hated me." It was embarrassing, but it felt freeing to finally say it.

Taekwoon looked down, but nodded. "I'm sorry. I should have been a better sunbae." He lifted his head. "This doesn't have to be forever. Just until you feel up to it again. If you're a reliever, you pitch more often, anyway." He paused. "And... I know I'm quiet, but please don't be scared of me from now on."

 _From now on._ Sanghyuk hadn't thought it was that obvious, but then, he hadn't thought much about what Taekwoon might be feeling towards him besides disappointment. Maybe he hadn't been fulfilling his duties, either.

"I won't," he promised, and he was surprised when Taekwoon smiled.

\---

At the beginning of June, Seoul Excelsis played in a regional tournament. It was just preliminary, a qualifying round for the national tournament, but Seoul Excelsis hadn't missed the national tournament in the last three years, since before any of the current third-years were on the team. Everyone had to be in their best condition.

Sanghyuk had been training with Taekwoon for the last month, and just as steadily as he had felt himself losing his ability to pitch, he was getting it back. It wasn't easy; there had been a lot of adjustments at first, as Taekwoon tried to clean up Sanghyuk's loose Little League delivery, testing where to release the ball at what time, what was the best angle for his fingers to release a fastball. But things started to get better, and just before the regional tournament began Coach Hwang had started letting him pitch again, putting him in the eighth inning to take over for Daewon or Donggeun.

He missed starting games. He missed it especially when he watched Taekwoon, and the way he'd move with his head down through the other team's batting order, silently picking up on the best way to make each one unravel at the plate for the next time you saw them. But it was satisfying to get in and out of an inning properly, and Sanghyuk was happy to fill that role for the team, at least.

Today was the quarter-final round of the tournament, and something was wrong with Taekwoon. Nothing was wrong with his pitching, but his follow-throughs were weak, and he was leaning heavily on one foot. Sanghyuk noticed it first from the dugout in the second inning.

"Coach," he said, and he pointed to the field. Hakyeon had come in to the pitcher's mound, and he, Taekwoon, and Sungjae were conferencing quietly, Taekwoon holding his glove over his mouth.

Coach Hwang looked from the scene to Sanghyuk, then back out. "Let's hope he's got another inning in him, at least." He put his hand on Sanghyuk's shoulder briefly. "Start warming up."

Sanghyuk turned his head quickly. "Me, sir?"

The coach was already walking down the dugout. "Nakhun, go with Sanghyuk."

On the field, the other team hit a fly ball. Eunkwang chased it down in left field and got under it in time. When the defence returned to the dugout, Taekwoon shrugged off Hakyeon and Wonsik's outstretched arms, but he was limping a little. Sanghyuk stopped at the dugout steps to help him, and he looked surprised, but let Sanghyuk hold onto his arm as he stepped down.

"Where are you going?" he asked Sanghyuk once he'd sat down on the bench.

Sanghyuk turned on the top step. "Coach is putting me in."

Taekwoon raised his eyebrows for a moment, and then he smiled.

Nakhun and Sanghyuk set up in the foul zone, and Sanghyuk began throwing some warm-up pitches. He'd turned his setup into a mantra now ( _hand, twist, up, throw_ ), and soon he felt his body lock into the rhythm he wanted. Behind them, Seoul Excelsis went up to bat. Hongbin was playing today, one of the team's few lefty hitters, and he managed to beat a line drive into the hole between second and third base. But he stayed on second base as Wonsik hit a pop fly that went nowhere, and then Jaehwan struck out trying to beat a fastball.

"Good luck," Nakhun said, as he returned to the dugout. Sungjae came out, in his catcher's gear now, and he gave Sanghyuk a big grin.

They took a few warm-up tosses of their own. Sungjae jumped up and down between each throw, but by the time the first batter stepped up, he settled down, close to the ground. He gave Sanghyuk the first signal, and Sanghyuk locked in, _hand, twist, up, throw._

His pitch went high, and the batter didn't swing. Ball one. _It's just one inning,_ Sanghyuk thought. These things couldn't be taken as a bad sign. Sungjae threw the ball back and reset, signed for a strike.

This time his pitch was good: right down the middle, under the bat. Sungjae nodded as he threw it back to Sanghyuk, and Sanghyuk gave him two more, exactly the same way. Strikeout.

"That's it," Hakyeon yelled from behind Sanghyuk. Sanghyuk allowed himself a small feeling of satisfaction, before he bent forward again as the second batter stepped up to the plate. His work wasn't done yet.

He struck out this batter too, and then the next one, and just like that, the inning was over. Three up, three down, no defensive plays required. Sanghyuk had done it.

He walked back to the dugout with the rest of his team. "Nice work. You're going to stay in for a bit," Coach Hwang told him, and Sanghyuk nodded and sat down on the bench beside Sungjae. Taekwoon was nowhere to be seen, probably back in the changeroom with the team's trainer. For once, Sanghyuk missed his long stares.

\---

On the bus back to school, once he'd walked through a row of congratulatory high-fives from the rest of the team, Sanghyuk sat down across from Taekwoon. Taekwoon's outstretched leg took up the whole seat, so he couldn't sit next to him. There was a white bandage wrapped around his ankle, and his pant leg was rolled up to the knee. "How's your ankle, sunbae?" he asked.

Taekwoon hummed. "It'll get better," he replied. "I'm not worried. You can replace me. I think Coach wants you to try again."

"I don't want to _replace_ you," Sanghyuk said immediately, but he grinned. "But if you think I'm ready..."

"You have to replace me someday." Taekwoon shrugged. "Sorry, Yang Yoseob gave me this talk once. I thought I would try it."

"I guess that's why you're not the team captain." It came out without thinking, and Sanghyuk blushed a little after he said it. He didn't want to cross the line too quickly. But Taekwoon just laughed, a little shake of his shoulders.

"Our team captain last year was the best," he said. "Yoon Doojoon. He's playing for the LG Twins now."

"Ah. Hongbin told me all your seniors were good," Sanghyuk said.

Taekwoon nodded. "Hakyeon's not bad, though. He has Eunkwang and he has me, but he's not bad on his own."

"So who's gonna be the captain next year?"

Taekwoon paused to think. Then he said, confidently, "Wonsik."

"And the year after that?"

He paused again. "Yook Sungjae."

Sanghyuk liked that answer, but he still crossed his arms. "Hey, you're supposed to say me!"

Taekwoon shook his head. "Not you." He smiled. "If I'm not the captain, you're not going to be either." Sanghyuk pouted at him, but he couldn't keep it up for long, and his grin broke through eventually.


End file.
